How to Force Download a CSV File After Creation with PHP and AJAX?

How to Download a File via AJAX in PHP

When working with web applications, it's often necessary to download files from the server. AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) provides a way to initiate such downloads without reloading the page.

One method involves creating a button that triggers an AJAX function. The following code snippet demonstrates this approach:

<code class="php">function csv(){
  $ajaxRequest = ajax();
  $postdata = "data=" . document.getElementById("id").value;
  $ajaxRequest.onreadystatechange = function(){
    var ajaxDisplay = document.getElementById('ajaxDiv');
    if($ajaxRequest.readyState == 4 && $ajaxRequest.status==200){
      ajaxDisplay.innerHTML = $ajaxRequest.responseText;           
    }
  }

  $ajaxRequest.open("POST","csv.php",false);
  $ajaxRequest.setRequestHeader('Content-Type', 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded');
  $ajaxRequest.send($postdata);
}</code>

However, the question here is how to force download a created CSV file after it has been created by PHP. The provided script in the PHP file is as follows:

<code class="php">$fileName = 'file.csv';
$downloadFileName = 'newfile.csv';

if (file_exists($fileName)) {
  header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
  header('Content-Type: text/csv');
  header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename='.$downloadFileName);
  ob_clean();
  flush();
  readfile($fileName);
  exit;
}
echo "done";</code>

The problem is that running this script doesn't initiate a download but instead displays the contents of the CSV file within the page (inside the ajaxDiv).

The answer to this issue is that AJAX is not intended for file downloads. Instead, the best practice is to open a new window and set its address to the download link. Alternatively, you can directly redirect the page to the download link using document.location = .....

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